Psalm 37:1-9
Matthew 3:13-17

Many of the words of Jesus have had lasting significance and impact through the centuries.  Each Sunday during Lent we will examine a statement made by Jesus and the events in his life surrounding that statement.  It is my hope that by exploring these statements and events will help us learn from Jesus about our own lives, help us examine our relationship with God and may result in personal and spiritual growth.
           
John the Baptist’s manner and message struck a responsive chord in the lives of people in the first century and they flocked to the Jordan River to be baptized by him.  One day Jesus was a part of the crowd that heard John preach and he stepped forward asking John to baptize him.  John refused.  Why?  
           
Exactly why John was stunned by Jesus' request for baptism is speculation because the Synoptic writers, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, only record John resistance.  Their telling about Jesus’ baptism was more than forty years after the fact.  All they tell is that Jesus asked John to baptize him and initially John refused. The writers do not inter­pret his resistance other than to identify John's feelings that he should be baptized by Jesus.
           
Jesus heard in John's message a clear and certain call for people to establish their relationship as the people of God.  He acknowledged John's baptism as an appropriate sign of that covenant relationship.  His statement, "to fulfill all righteousness,” means this was right thing to do to autograph his relationship with God. 
           
Jesus' desire to do the right thing in his relationship with God was a lasting word because he was expressing a faith commitment to God that by its very nature was a choice against ultimate loyalty to anything or to anyone other than God.  Later Jesus said it was impossible to serve two masters.  To choose one was to choose against all others.  To be faithful to God was to meet the demands of the relationship which fulfilled righteousness.  Apparently John was convinced by Jesus' encouragement because he consented to baptize Jesus.
           
Jesus grew as a human being and faced life as a human being. His awareness of himself, who he was and who he hoped to be, were gradual developments that came through deepening awareness during his years in Nazareth.   In hearing the preaching of John the Baptist, Jesus heard a message about God that struck a responsive chord in his life.  Perhaps then he recognized that the opposite of repentance was to stay the course.  He heard in John's word the clear call by which people could and must change the course. He sensed a new age was ushering in for his people and for the world and John was sounding forth the call to people in a way that it had not been sounded for generations.  Jesus saw the new age coming and sensed his desire and need to be part of that age. He stepped forth to be baptized, signaling a beginning.  In that sense Jesus redefined the form‑‑baptism‑‑as he later pointed out that when forms, old wine­skins, had lost their usefulness and flexibility to carry the substance, new wine, then old wineskins should be thrown away and new wineskins should be used.
           
Baptism was an outward, visible sign of Jesus' commitment to ministry.  Matthew, Mark, and Luke have a similar sequence of events in Jesus’ adult life:  the preaching of John the Baptist, the baptism of Jesus, Jesus' sojourn in the wilderness, the calling of disciples, and the expansion of ministry.  The writers intentionally portray the ministry of Jesus as beginning at his baptism.
           
Jesus had been questioning who he was.  "Who am I?" is a question every human being asks in some form.  In a sense an answer really cannot be given to this question.  The best a person can do is to tell others the direction in which he is marching.  This is what Jesus did in being baptized.  He was baptized to signify the completion of his covenant with God saying to God and to himself, "This is the direction I am going."  At his baptism was the time when the anchor was lifted, the cables were cut and Jesus' life set sail into the deep, charting a direct and difficult course.  It was a course that he knew not every turn or every event but it was a direction toward which he chose to move.  Jesus may have been as surprised as anybody at what was happening to him. 
           
Jesus' baptism was a time of blessing, acceptance, approval, and assurance. The church clearly has seen Jesus' baptism as his inauguration, commissioning, and ordination to ministry.  In this regard Jesus' baptism was a beginning.  It was not an ending nor was it an end in itself.  Jesus' baptism was an outward expression of his inner commitment.
           
Certainly because Jesus was baptized is why baptism became important as the early church was forming.  Various New Testament writers use a rich variety of meanings for baptism:  forgiveness, rebirth, cleansing, death, resurrection, refreshment, adoption, light.  For the early believers, baptism was patterned on the death and resurrection of Christ (Acts 2:38, Romans 6:3‑4, Galatians 3:27, I Corinthians 12:13).  In the biblical record of the early church, baptism means that the one being baptized is beginning a new life.  Baptism signals a shaping and directing of one's thinking to be open to the awareness of God's presence in the person's life.  Baptism is an act of commitment and promise in which life is moving with direction, purpose, and objective.  Baptism is an outward, visible sign of the inward, invisible grace of God at work in a person's life.  The words of Goethe are apropos:  "The highest cannot be spoken; it can only be acted."  Baptism serves as a seal of the promise of God's love, care, and presence.  Baptism is a symbolic way of saying, "I am ready to grow.  I willingly entrust myself to God's creative power to grow me beyond where I am."  Thus baptism has become the signal of the dawning of a person's faith in God.  We say when an infant is baptized that we are setting the child on a journey and committing ourselves to help the child grow in faith, grow in his or her relationship with God until the child can make her own commitment and thus confirm the meaning and purpose of her baptism.
           
Baptism signals that the one being baptized is beginning a faith journey and commitment to God just as Jesus' baptism signaled the beginning of his faith commit­ment to ministry.  No one knows at the beginning of a journey all that is in store for him on the way.  Jesus did not know all that would unfold during his ministry.  He had no idea that his disciples would have such a difficult time learning or that religious leaders would be so resistant to change.
           
A significant aspect of baptism is the interpretation given to it.  Events are not nearly as important as the meaning those events come to have for the persons involved.  The baptism of Jesus was not regarded as greatly important at the time of the event, but much later, decades later,  the early church began to look back to the event and highlight its significance.
             
Jesus’ baptism pointed in the direction in which he was marching.  He was setting sail on a course of life.  It was a course that turned out to be very difficult and disturbing but a course on which he was willing to remain in spite of the many offers he was given to live differently.
           
Jesus' request to be baptized by John is a lasting word.  It counters anything that anyone, including John the Baptist and Matthew, would expect the Son of God to say.  It is such a diffi­cult request that Matthew has John refusing to baptize Jesus.  Through the centuries this has been a difficult word of Jesus with which the church has had to deal.  Some, like the author of John's Gospel, have not heard it as germane and found no need to mention it.  Others, like Mark and Luke, see Jesus' baptism event as impor­tant and report it in a rather matter‑of fact style.  But there are those, like Matthew, who wrestle with the question of why was Jesus baptized.  As Matthew tells it, right in the middle of the Jordan River Jesus is challenged to change the course of his ministry before he ever began but he refused.  Jesus was interpreting the event of his baptism as an expression of his faith in God which was essential to complete his covenant relationship with God or in his own words "to complete what was right for that relationship."
           
Jesus' baptism signaled the direction he was moving.  There were many times during the three years that followed when he was tempted to abort his mission.  "Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness" have become lasting words.  They are lasting words because Jesus remained faithful in his commitment to God.  I wonder how he did that.
           
Arthur Gordon tells about taking his children for a drive on a Sunday afternoon primarily to permit his wife who had the flu to be able to rest.  Gordon and the children wound up at an old cemetery and got out to walk around.  The children were amazed at some of the dates on the tombstones, 1847, 1812. 
           
Gordon saw one that marked the resting place of someone’s beloved wife who died in 1865 of a fever.  He looked closer at a line of script that was difficult to distinguish.  He thought it probably was a quotation but discovered rather a statement: Ever she sought the best, ever she found it.  Just eight words.
           
Gordon shared his reflection. “A century earlier this woman had been living through a hideous war.  Perhaps it took her husband from her, maybe her sons as well.  When it ended her country was beaten, broken, impoverished.  She must have known humiliation, tasted despair.  Yet someone who knew her had written that she always looked for the best, and always found it.”
           
After Gordon and his children returned home and the afternoon passed into evening, he found himself continuing to reflect on the phrase he had read on a woman’s tombstone.  Gordon said, “Perhaps I learned something today: search for the best.”
           
I know of nothing that better describes Jesus’ approach as he embarked on his ministry.  He wrestled with what it meant for him to commit himself in a direction in serving God.  The direction he went led him to search for the best.  And he found it within himself to give of his best. 
           
How have you struggled in committing your life to serve God?  Do you see your struggle as similar to the way Jesus struggled?  What form has your commitment taken?  What symbolizes your commitment for you?  Are you ready to grow?  What are the signals in your life that indicate you are ready to grow?  May we use the time we are given during this Lenten season to examine, reflect, and deepen our commitment to God.  May we search for the best and may we like Jesus find it.  We don’t have to search very far.  It’s all around us all the time, the goodness, the abundance, the wonder of living.  The mystery and wonder of it all. May we find tangible ways to express our commitment to God.  May we be astonished at the growth we experience as a result of the commitment we make to search for the best in ourselves.  May that be our task this Lenten journey and me the result be that we search for the best and give our best in loving God and loving those around us.